Page 14 of The Devil's Ransom

They passed the secretary’s desk for the Oval and reached the door. Wolffe said, “We’ve been hacked.”

Palmer’s mouth opened, and Wolffe entered the room, seeing Amanda Croft, the secretary of state, Mark Oglethorpe, the secretary of defense, and Kerry Bostwick, the director of the CIA. Behind the Resolute Desk was President Philip Hannister, who looked more like an accountant than a president—which is what he used to be before he’d assumed the mantle of the most powerful leadership post on earth.

They all turned at his entrance and he said, “I’m sorry to cause everyone to come here on a Sunday, but we have a significant problem.”

He went between the two couches where the principals sat and talked to President Hannister, saying, “Blaisdell Consulting has been hit with a ransomware attack, and because we’re linked via the internet to our myriad of cover organizations, they’re being hit as well. It’s shutting us down.”

From the couch, the D/CIA Bostwick said, “A targeted attack? They know who you are?”

Wolffe shook his head and said, “Creed doesn’t think so. If itwas targeted, they’d just root around and see what they could find in the background. They wouldn’t announce themselves. But the damage is pretty complete. We can’t operate right now because my cover organizations are either locked out, or are shut down to prevent being locked out.”

President Hannister said, “What are they asking for?”

“Four bitcoin—but we don’t know if that’s four bitcoin just for Blaisdell Consulting or four bitcoin for every different company they’ve infected. We don’t think they knew they were going to hit all of these different companies because they had no idea they were connected. We don’t know the final ransom at this point, and I don’t think they do, either.”

“What’s four bitcoin worth? Maybe we just pay them off and keep this quiet.”

Amanda Croft said, “Sir, you’ve made it a policy not to pay ransomware attacks because it just encourages more.”

President Hannister rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, I get that, but this is a little different. We’re not talking about some embarrassment here. We’re talking about national security. It needs to be kept quiet.”

Wolffe said, “Four bitcoin—at today’s prices—is about a hundred and sixty thousand dollars. But the price of bitcoin shifts dramatically on a daily basis. Either way, it’s not cheap.”

Kerry said, “I’m sick of this crap. Is it the Russians again?”

“We don’t know. We’re trying to find out. That’s why I asked for Dylan Hobbes. He’s apparently an expert on this stuff.”

President Hannister said, “We requested his appearance, and he’s on the way. He’s apparently doing a lot of contract work for the U.S. government, but I’ve never heard of him. Who is he?”

“Someone Creed recommended. Spent a career in the NSAworking with TAO and the new Cyber Command, then went private sector. He has a clearance, but he’s going to need to be read on to Project Prometheus. I know that’s not optimal, but we need to do this quickly.”

The secretary of state, Amanda Croft asked, “I know NSA, but what’s TAO?”

The secretary of defense said, “Tailored Access Operations. Most of what the NSA does is passive listening to various methods of communication, but sometimes they need entry first. TAO does the penetration. It’s the most highly classified stuff inside the NSA. They’re basically the best hackers in the world.”

Palmer’s phone buzzed and he said, “He’s here. Be right back.” A minute later, he returned with a slender man in tow, another visitor’s badge around his neck. Tall, more than six feet, with gray hair and round glasses that made him look a little like John Lennon, he walked like a stork, all gangly legs and arms. He entered the room and waited for someone to speak.

President Hannister said, “Dylan, thank you for coming. We hear you’re the best at a problem we have.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

Wolffe brought him up to speed on the problem set, ending with, “Can you help with this?”

Hobbes nodded, saying, “I’m assuming we’re at Day Two here?”

Wolffe laughed and said, “No. We’re smarter than that. We’re at Zero Day, plus about four hours.”

Wolffe explained what they were doing to mitigate the damage and Hobbes said, “Good. Very good. But you also need to isolate the boxes that are infected for me to inspect. Take them off the network to prevent them from altering anything. I want to seewhat happened when they struck, because they’ll be messing with your systems every single minute. I want to see what they saw the minute they hit, not what they’re now doing to camouflage their actions.”

Wolffe nodded and got on his phone, calling Creed.

President Hannister said, “Can you locate them? Even if you can’t solve the ransomware problem? Can you thread it back to where they are?”

Hobbes said, “Yes, usually we can. When REvil hit Kaseya we were able to locate them virtually and take back their ransom. When SolarWinds was hit we could trace it back to Russia, but if you’re asking for an actual address, I don’t know. It depends on the clues they left behind in the code.”

Amanda Croft said, “What’s that mean?”

Hobbes held out his hands and said, “Sometimes these guys are stupid, and sometimes they’re a nation-state trying to cause havoc. I can’t predict what I’ll find until I do a deep dive into your systems.”

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